Aug. 21, 2013
“Some advocates have suggested secure facilities for America’s child sex trafficking victims…. Such facilities force troubled children into a system of care that may be just as exploitive as with a pimp/trafficker.
“Countless women continue to seek restitution for the sexual abuse by employees assigned to supervise them while in detention in the ’60s and ’70s – some of these women have children fathered by detention employees….
“So then why do we talk about secure facilities for child victims of sex trafficking? Because ‘sex is at issue’ in their victimization….
“Child sex trafficking is not the first social issue to create moral panic around physical and sexual abuse. In the ’80s, Satanic Ritual Abuse garnered self-proclaimed experts, national media attention, law enforcement mobilizations, federal funding, excitement and hysteria. By the ’90s official investigations produced no evidence of widespread conspiracies and only a small number of crimes were verified….”
– From “Residential Programs for America’s Child Sex Trafficking Victims: Secure or Non-Secure Facilities?” by Dr. Lois Lee, founder and president, Children of the Night, at Huffington Post (July 9, 2013)